One Fallen Man
by Katie Coleman
Summary: Memories are only fleeting seconds of our lives, captured for a lifetime in our hearts.


**Title:** One Fallen Man  
** Author:** Katie  
**Fandom: **Prison Break  
**Characters: **Michael Scofield, Sara Tancredi, TBag, Fernando Sucre, Henry Pope, Brad Bellick, Lincoln Burrows.  
**Pairings: **None  
**Summary: **_Memories are only fleeting seconds of our lives, captured for a lifetime in our hearts._****  
**Word Count:** 1,250  
** Genre:** AU, Pre-escape.  
**Author's Note: **Reviews make my world go around, and it might just stop without them.  
**Disclaimer: **You know the drill, if I owned them, you wouldn't be reading this (for free, anyway). They all belong to other people (who are damn lucky and somewhat richer than I am).

**One Fallen Man**

"_Memories are only fleeting seconds of our lives, captured for a lifetime in our hearts._**_"_**

**Sara Tancredi**

"Doctor Sara Tancredi,"

His smile is the most capturing thing she's ever witnessed, and as she looks up at him, she can feel her own lips instinctively curling into a weak smile. The gauze bandage above his eye shows a faint line of blood and she gently tugs it away from his skin.

"Yes?" Her eyes flicker downwards for a moment as she places the used dressing beside them on the table, and his flicker upwards to meet them when she glances back. His blue eyes are shining as she dabs some ointment on the wound, her delicate hand perching absently on his cheek to steady herself.

His eyes draw closed for only a moment, and when they re-open, she is pressing a fresh dressing to his skin.

"Have you ever thought of taking up a job in any other field?" He asks lightly, his gaze fixed unwaveringly upon hers.

She turns away from him quietly, hand slipping to the table beside her to gather the discarded bandage. "No," she replies, her tone just as soft as her touch had been. "It's in my nature to help people, Michael."

Michael casts his eyes downwards to the tattered linoleum under his feet, "Mine too," he responds quietly, although he knows that she will hear... _wants_ her to hear.

_Lincoln._

She fixes her eyes upon his downcast gaze, "I know."

**Theodore Bagwell**

The elder man's face is near painted with blood and bruises as he leans against the wall of the cell. He has a look of shear satisfaction on his ageing face which, Michael determines, means that either he found himself a new 'friend', or he had put to good use the pair of knuckle-dusters he'd acquired. Michael hadn't asked where from.

"Hey Pretty, what's up wit' you?"

The sound of TBag's southern accent stretching around those words stirs anger and illness inside of him, but he refuses to act upon it—be the change you want to see in the world, or something like that.

"Nothing." He scowls so slightly as he speaks, his face contorting into the shadow of a frown.

"Oh, come now, don' be all unfriendly like that. I'm not goin' t' hurt ya." TBag slides further into the cell, a sly grin choked on his expression. "You should know that by now, Pretty. Anyhow, I'm here on business..."

"Oh yeah?" Michael straightens up, inadvertently meeting Theodore's gaze.

"Yeah, strictly business." Teddy smirks. "Or at least until you get up into that infirm'ry that you are so fond of."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"See, Pretty—that right there is what separates the good liars, like ma'self, from the bad liars, like you."

**Fernando Sucre**

"We're never going to get this done, friend."

Michael grunts softly as he sprawls another mound of dirt across his shovel and onto the heap. "Yeah, well that's what you get. Boss asked, and we shall perform." He flicked his gaze across the yard to check for any signs of his brother, before scooping another shovel-full of dirt upon the growing pile.

"I don't know why we have to do this anyway, man; it's like looking for a needle in a hay stack!"

"Somehow, I think looking for a needle in a hay stack might be a little different from digging for a loose water line, Sucre." Michael heaved another pile of dirt across, scattering a little back into the trench they had dug.

"Yeah—the needle would be _easier_."

Michael tapped a patch of the ground with the blade of his shovel, and grinned. "Sucre, you might want to move." He dropped the trowel onto the hardened earth beside him.

"Why, bro? We ain't ever going to find anything here."

Scofield watched as a small collection of water trickled from the cracked pipe, before spurting out in a vivacious circle towards them.

"That's why."

**Veronica Donovan**

The pain in her eyes says it all before she even speaks; the evidence fell through, the witnesses bailed, anything and everything that would keep them from losing Lincoln had been lost itself.

"I'm sorry," She quivers, into his shoulder. "I'm so, so sorry."

"Why?" is all that he can ask; the only word he can mutter through the silence of their pain. "Why?"

"I don't know, Michael," She breathes. "They found a loop-hole in the evidence, a witness backed down; I _don't_ know."

**Sara Tancredi**

It's time for the stitches above his eye to come out, and all he can think is '_Lincoln Lincoln Lincoln_.'

"You're quiet." She comments, reaching for the pair of tweezers she had position upon the desk. He doesn't flinch as she pulls the first stitch out, only stares blankly past her, as if she isn't really there at all.

'_Lincoln Lincoln Lincoln_.'

She hesitates before tugging gently at the next stitch, her hand falling softly upon his shoulder. "Michael, I'm sorry." '_Lincoln Lincoln Lincoln_.' "You'll get through this, I promise."

He looks up at her for the first time, his once-vibrant eyes dulled with hurt and his skin paled with fear.

"What if I don't want to?"

'_Lincoln Lincoln Lincoln_.'

**Henry Pope**

"Michael, I understand that this is a very hard time for you."

Scofield glances up at his superior, his expression feigning indifference, though his eyes are clouded with hurt and fear. "Do you?"

Pope merely nods, though his heart aches for the boy. "Yes. But you're brother..."

"Doesn't deserve to die." Michael's eyes flicker between the Pope and Bellick.

"... has asked for you to be there with him, for the execution."

**Lincoln Burrows**

"I'm sorry, Linc,"

"Don't be. Don't make it any harder," He glances upwards from the back of the Bible that he's been holding, pressing his fingers to the wearing leather patterns on the cover. He studies his younger sibling with heaviness in his aching heart, and thinks that the tears in Michael's eyes are just verbalising what they both are feeling. "In two hours, I'm a dead man. They're going to strap me in that chair..."

This time, it's Michael that averts his brother's gaze. He turns to the front page of the Bible he is holding, slightly lighter in colour than Lincoln's, and studies the title, though his eyes don't see it at all. What they see is an innocent man, his brother, dying for a crime he didn't commit—a murder he didn't cause.

Lincoln has fallen silent, but his eyes stay on his brother, as if trying to take in his last visions of his brother, to hold with him for eternity, or whatever lay beyond his death.

"And that's my fault... I said I would get you out of here, and I couldn't. Linc, it's my fault you're going to die."

The eldest of the two shakes his head solemnly; his eyes fixated now on the singular tear spilling down Michael's cheek, and he thinks of a time when they were younger, and he had wiped a of Michael's tears away. He can't do that this time, for there will be many more long after he's gone.

"No, it's not, Mikey. It's no-body's fault, except those son of bitches that they sent out to kill the Vice President's brother, you hear me? It's not your fault, it's not Veronica's or Nick's fault; it's _theirs_."

Michael nods slowly, and met Lincoln's steady gaze. "I know." He tells him quietly, as if no-body else should hear him. "I know."

"I love you, kid."

"I love you too."


End file.
